Your Questions Answered

Hello, and welcome to my new home at www.SimpleMystery.com.  I’d like to thank you all for making the trip.  And special thanks to Kelly and Leigh Anne, who gave me the fodder for this first post in the new digs.

For my last post at my old address I opened the floor to questions, and here’s what I got:

From Kelly: Where do you see yourself in two years?  In five?  Ten?

Whew, big question.  I mean, there’s a lot of categories to cover, right?  Career, family, etc.  Let’s dive in.

In two years, I’d like to be a published author, and also a mother.  I’d like to be a better cook by this time also.  I’d like to be making most of my meals from scratch, and making good use of my freezer.  Basically, two-years-from-now Jane is just me, only slightly improved in every area.  The big question that remains is: will I be living in Atlanta still or not?  Although I like it, Atlanta doesn’t feel completely like home.  I can’t really say whether we’ll still be here in two years.  I would be happy with either answer.

In five years, I hope I’ll be working on the third or fourth sequel to my current book.  Also on the first or second sequel to my first kid.  By this time I would hope that I’ll have an inkling of how my publishing career is going to play out:  am I going to be a bestseller?  A midlist?  Of course, I’m hoping for the former.  By this time, I suspect Mark and I will have moved on to our second house, probably not in Atlanta.  Some places we have talked about:  Austin, and the research triangle in North Carolina.  Once again, pulling for the former.

In ten years, I guess whatever kids I am going to have will be had.  I hope to still be working on the same mystery series.  Maybe it’s naive to think I’ll be able to stay interested in, and devoted to, a single project for a decade or more–but believe it or not, I actually have loose plans for the series up through this point.  Book 14 is totally going to knock your socks off.

And from Leigh Anne: What is the one book I should read next?

So, this gets at something I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while now: the dichotomy (some might say war) between literary fiction and genre fiction.  Like, should I recommend to you something uplifting and meaningful and full of artistic cachet?  Or just something I really enjoyed?  ‘Cause my rep’s on the line, right?  A writer, with a writing blog, gets asked for a book recommendation, and you can’t help but judge her a little bit by what she chooses.

Well, lately I am in a place where I just want to talk about the things I love, literary snobbery be damned.  And so I will suggest something totally offbeat: Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham.  This one is decidedly in the “I just loved the pants off it” category.  It’s fun, fantastical, and a graphic novel to boot. It’s about all the characters you remember from fairy tales: Snow White, Prince Charming, the Big Bad Wolf.  They’re living in hiding in New York, and … oh, just read it.

Also from Leigh Anne: How did my sister, Kate, wind up on ESPN?

She was in the audience for what was apparently one hell of a basketball game.

Thanks for the questions, guys.  Join me next time, when I revisit this whole literary/genre conflict.